


Picnics and Ball Games

by Crollalanza



Series: Iwaoi - Philos Series [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:38:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2610455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crollalanza/pseuds/Crollalanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The new boy, arriving late, was dressed far too smartly for an eighth birthday party. With stiff creases in his shirt and instructions from his 'mummy' to eat carrot sticks and not chocolate, Hajime could only eye the boy with intense dislike and derision.<br/>But he soon learns that in Oikawa Tooru's case appearances are very deceptive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picnics and Ball Games

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Iwaoi week. The prompt was Childhood.

He was dressed smartly, smarter than the other boys there, sharp creases pressed into his shorts, and a spotless white shirt with a collar.  As Hajime helped himself to another cup cake and a handful of jellybeans, he couldn’t help but think the boy was out of place. It was as if his mum had dressed him for school, and not for a birthday party. Certainly not an eighth birthday party comprising a picnic, cake, and ball games so all the boys could run off their energy.

This boy didn’t look as if he knew what a ball was, let alone kick it and run round while they all played soccer.

“Be a good boy, Tooru-chan,” cooed his mother. “Daddy will pick you up later.”

“Uh-huh,” replied Tooru, immediately helping himself to a chocolate cake.

“Tooru-chan, carrots are better for you. And you forgot your toothbrush, didn’t you.”

Hajime spat out his jellybeans. This kid’s mum wanted him to carry a toothbrush with him ... for a party. How lame was that? Torn between laughter and pity, he tried to look away, but just then, the boy looked straight across at him.

“You should put your hand over your mouth when you eat,” he observed, in a tone that Hajime could only think was what his dad would call a ‘drawl’. “That way you won’t lose anything.”

“Tooru,” his mum warned, she lowered her voice just enough to be unintelligible to everyone but her son and Hajime. “Not everyone has your advantages. He’s obviously from a rough family, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be kind.”

“Sure, Mummy,” Tooru replied, his voice singsong. Smiling beatifically, he let her kiss him goodbye and promised to be good.

Hajime scowled. One of the jellybeans – a green one - had stuck to his trainer, so he picked it off and flicked it at the boy, smirking when it landed on his shirt. He sat back, waiting for tears, or cries of ‘not fair’ to the birthday boy’s mum, but instead Tooru just gave him a look and calmly finished his chocolate cake.

“Hajime-chan,” yelled Icharo Eguchi (the birthday boy). “Soccer – you’re in goal.”

Aware the other boy, this so out of place boy, was watching him closely, Hajime shrugged. Icharo wasn’t a particular friend of his. They’d been born around the same time, so their mums had attended the same baby groups and struck up a friendship. They fondly expected their two boys to be the best of friends, but it hadn’t worked out like that. They’d play alongside each other, but not together. Hajime found Icharo stupid, Icharo thought Hajime boring.

“Shouldn’t you run along?” Tooru teased.

“Want another cake,” he replied defensively. “And Icharo can’t tell me what to do.” He scowled again, this time not at Tooru, but rather the other boys all milling around on the field behind them. “I hate being in goal.”

“Then don’t play. He can’t make you.” Tooru picked up a carrot stick, contemplated it, then stuck it in a carton of ice cream, burying it deep with his finger. “Well, he can’t make me, I don’t know about you.”

There was something infuriating about the boy’s confidence, the way he sat so at ease in surroundings he patently didn’t fit into. Hajime wanted to leave, hell, he’d even play in goal, but the thought of this boy laughing at him irritated him even more than Icharo’s assumption that he’d be keeper.

“Are you at school with them?” he asked, jerking his head back.

“Me?” Tooru shook his head. “I barely know him. We’ve just moved here from Tokyo. His father works for mine, and ... well ...” He narrowed his eyes. Hajime followed his gaze and saw he’d focused on Icharo who was now showing off with the ball, tapping it into the air with his foot and not letting it touch the ground. It dropped to the ground after six. “He’s not very good, is he?”

“He thinks he is,” Hajime said, and grinned at Tooru. “He goes to a soccer playing school, as well. He’s always going on about it.”

“But you go to a different one, obviously.”

“Uh-huh.” Hajime reached across for more jellybeans. “Watanku Elementary.”

“And you don’t play soccer?”

“The school has a team,” Hajime replied, and threw a jellybean in his mouth. “I don’t play.”

“Why is that? Are you not very good, either?”

Hajime blinked at the boy’s question. It was rude, but said in such a mild tone, that he could almost overlook the insult. Almost.

“I joined the volleyball club instead. Second graders don’t get on the team. ” He threw three more beans in his mouth; one hit his front teeth and bounced out, landing on the grass, another hit him on the nose, and the third bounced off his chin.

“They don’t if they throw like that,” Tooru said, bursting into laughter.

“Do you _want_ me to hit you?” Hajime snarled.

Tooru’s eyes widened. There was something like shock in them, as if he’d never been challenged before. Hajime scowled harder, wondering if he could scare him into shutting up. But it had the opposite effect as Tooru laughed louder. “You really _do_ want to hit me, don’t you?”

“Mmm, your ‘mummy’ said I was rough, didn’t she?  So what do you expect?”

“We want to start!” Icharo yelled and threw the football at Hajime’s head.

Having had enough of the conversation, Hajime got up, quite prepared to play in goal, especially if it got him away from Tooru. But then he noticed something: there were no other boys still eating. There were no girls either, so if he left, Tooru would be the only kid left with only the grown- ups to talk to. “You have space for him, don’t you?” he asked grudgingly.

Icharo looked Tooru up and down. His eyes slid across to his parents, and he glowered a little. Hajime was pretty sure his parents had told him he had to be nice to the boy, but he clearly didn’t want to.

“You can be a sub,” he muttered. “Wouldn’t want to get your clothes dirty, would you.”

Tooru’s mouth twitched, but whether it was a smile or a pout, Hajime wasn’t sure. For all he knew, it could have been both because Tooru seemed like the kind of boy who’d pout.

“And you can get the ball,” Icharo ordered. His voice sounded thinner, as if he was aware he’d lost or was about to lose some ascendency over the other boy.

Getting to his feet, Tooru strolled over to where the ball was. He picked it up, and started to bounce it on the ground, a small smile playing on his lips. From under his lashes, he gave Hajime a ghost of a wink, and then he threw the ball straight up into the air. As it came down, he tapped at it with his foot, then again, switching to the other, then to his heel, his chest, his knee and then back to his foot again. He managed thirty more tap ups of the ball before finally kicking one up to his head, and directing it straight at Icharo.

“I played for the under eights at my old school, Icharo-chan,” he said when Icharo fumbled the catch. “I don’t _mind_ playing, but I think you have to let this boy ...” He smiled at Hajime. “I don’t know your name.”

“Ha - Hajime.” He swallowed. “Hajime Iwa- Iwaizumi,” he spluttered, still gaping at the skill Tooru had shown with the ball.

“Ha-Hajime Hajime Iwa-Iwaizumi.” He tilted his chin sideways. “What a very long name.”

“No, it’s Hajime Iwa-”

Tooru didn’t listen but turned back to Icharo “You really must let him play somewhere other than goal.”

“He plays in goal,” Icharo insisted.

“Then we don’t play,” Tooru said. He glanced around, obviously bored with the conversation now. “Oh, good, you do have more than one ball. Iwa-chan and I are going to practise volleyball instead.”

Hardly able to keep a straight face, and trying hard not to show any sort of admiration for him, Hajime fetched the other ball. In the background, he could hear Icharo re-organising his teams, grumbling all the while.

“You play volleyball, then?” he muttered to Tooru.

“No. I’ve seen a few matches. It looks interesting. And apparently they play it at the new school I’m going to.”

Hajime stared at him. There was something, a look in Tooru’s eyes, or maybe it was the half smile. “Which school is that?” he asked, but he thought he knew.

“Watanku Elementary,” Tooru replied. And then he smiled properly, and started to laugh. “My parents are going to be dismayed that we’re spending money on a school that lets in such _rough_ children, Iwa-chan.”


End file.
